It is well known that the goals of medicine include both the prevention and the treatment of illness and injury. Since some form of pain to the body often accompanies illnesses and injuries, treatment may include protocols that help suppress or eliminate such pain. Thus, the focus of treatment is mostly directed to this primary pain associated with the trauma of the illness or injury, itself.
However, it is not unusual during the course of treatment for the patient to be subjected to conditions that are not ordinary in day-to-day life. For example, severe injury or prolonged illness can often result in the confinement of the patient to a bed or to a wheel chair. Some injuries, such as broken bones, and even some illnesses, are treated by the application of a support cast to a portion of the body to immobilize and support the body portions during convalescence. In the case of loss of limbs or amputation, treatment may include the provision of an appliance, such as a prosthesis, which may be attached to the body. In each of these cases, a contact surface of the object bears against an exterior surface portion of a body part either due to the weight of the body against the support surface or due to the weight of the item against the body part. The force of gravity therefore creates a pressure which is distributed over the area of contact with this pressure having a magnitude dependent upon such parameters as the area and contour of the contacting surfaces, the weight of the object or the person, the orientation of the contact surfaces to the direction of gravitational force, friction between the surfaces, etc.
Typically, these contact forces are not uniformly distributed over the contacting surface areas so that some localized areas experience a greater pressure than other areas. Areas of greater pressure over small surface areas tend to traumatize the body part, and this trauma can produce aggravating pain to the individual. Indeed, this trauma can be to such an extent as to ulcerate the skin to produce sores which are not only painful but also which may become infected. Further, swelling of the body part approximate to the area of trauma can even increase pressure which only serves to exacerbate the pain and the risk of sores.
For example, when a person is confined to an article of furniture, such as a bed or wheel chair, bed sores may develop on the legs and torso due to the weight of the person against the support surface of the article of furniture. Different pressures may result in a cast due to swelling or shrinkage of a body part confined therein so that portions of the exterior surface of the body part may be subjected to greater pressures and abrasion than other portions; this can again result in pain or ulceration. A prosthesis is usually mounted by receiving the stump (now commonly referred to as a residual limb) of a limb in a socket of the prosthesis so that pressure exists between a surface of the stump and the socket of the prosthesis. Changes in the body weight and muscularture of the person resulting from use of the prosthesis may effect the fit of the prosthesis on the stump which again cause hot spots leading to pain and ulceration of the exterior surface of the stump.
Heretofore, it has not been known to monitor the force profile of pressure over the exterior surface of the body part which contacts a surface of another object, and apparatus to monitor this pressure distribution to provide a force profile is not known to the inventors. There has been a long felt need, though, for an apparatus method which can measure the pressure distribution to produce a force profile of the contacting surfaces either so, that a better fit of a cast or a prosthesis may be had or so that potential hot spots can be identified at an early stage thereby allowing medical personnel to alter the contour or the orientation of the contact surfaces in an effort to help reduce or eliminate the excessive pressure in the localized area. The present invention is directed to the provision of such apparatus and method.